Say When
by Kobal
Summary: When the blood stops running, when you decide you want the pain to stop, just say so. Just say when you want to break free, if you think you can. Just say when. ::...M for language and gore and mature content...:: AkiraRen.


**Well...I believe Air Gear is my new writing passion. That is all. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Quite literally. **

**WARNING: This story contains sexual content (not really, but too much for T) and there is also gore, and language (but you always have language issues...it's Air Gear...)

* * *

**Say When

* * *

Akira returns to the deserted apartment; he stands in the doorway. His ATs, tight in his torn up hands, is suddenly much heavier. He thinks about carving things into the bare walls with the key. When he stands over his bed—nothing more than a mattress on the floor, he tries to pretend he does not notice the blood.

**All around the house **is scribbled in dripping red on the wall.

* * *

"_So this is it," She says. "This is where you sleep." _

_It is hard to think straight with all the heat in his face, but Akira nods. "I totally stole that mattress off the street."_

_Ren wrinkles her nose for second before grinning, "It is dark in here." _

"_I can't pay for electricity…" Akira mumbles as he starts to tap the wall with his knuckles. _

_She is not listening, and he does not care._

"_Come lay with me," She says. And he obeys, numbly._

_He tries to keep his eyes away from her knobby knees and boney fingers. She is not getting enough food. It is evident in her collar bone. _

"_Lay." Ren insists. She touches his hip lightly and he sinks. "Why do you look at me like that?"_

"_Like what?" _

"_Like…worry." _

_She props herself up on her left elbow so that she is leaning against him. Whatever she is looking for in his face, she will find it. _

_When she sits up completely, her shoulder blades awaken, splintering out like jagged glass. _

_She has moved herself over him, and the room begins to fade away. The paint chipping off the walls, the uneven floor boards, the glass root beer bottle next to his ATs, the long crack in the ceiling that spawned so many others, the window sill dusted with the carcasses of dead bugs. It fades like the breath in his throat. It waters away like the saliva in his mouth. It shatters like her ankle. _

_All he feels are the springs of the mattress under his back, and Ren's weight on his stomach. Akira runs his hands along her forearms and he is terrified to be able to fit his around her elbow. "You should eat more…" He says softly. "Stay healthy." _

_She rocks her thin hips against his, sending shards of wet prickles through his body. Pleasure like a pain in his heart, Akira can feel warmth rising in his chest and spreading down. _

_Ren gently places her fingers against his stomach, edging his t-shirt up the same way a person reads Braille. _

* * *

Akira runs. He runs so fast and so long that he does not know where he is. But he runs Mimasaka. And she knows where she is. She knows where he is.

"This is a communal garden," She says, gesturing over her shoulder. "People come to plant here…and people come to pick here. Mostly homeless people, but it had good intentions. Honest."

Once she notices his ATs, they talk. And Akira finds her still beautiful, motherly and down-to-earth and accepting. But she is also polite and socially awkward and cannot make decisions well. She has no self-confidence she likes to pat Akira on his shoulder, pretending to be unaware of how sharp her nails are. "I used to come here. "

Akira does not respond, just scans the weeded expanse of land. Sunflowers dominate the soil, trouncing the stakes of beans, the weak tomato branches, uprooting the burrowed carrots and radishes. The only vegetables that are really left are pumpkins, but they are rotten and gray in the heat.

"It's a civic engagement cemetery," Akira says.

Mimasaka laughs. "It is. But, you know, I enjoy sunflowers as well." She pauses before trying to find his eyes; Akira hides. "Why did you come here? Why did you bring them with you?" She nods to the wheels.

"I was lost." He says, and it is the truth. "I wasn't trying to go anywhere. I'm not supposed to be here though. I'm looking for a job now…and…" He cannot go on. There is pain all through his head, all through his feet. All through the space that divides his heart exactly in two. "Maybe with the Crocodiles…"

She looks at him suddenly, so quickly he has no choice but to looks back, to take in everything about her; all the glowing, tender, smiling, embarrassed, controlled young woman before him is something he has never seen. "Join them. I think that is good for you. If someone like you is trying to protect people from the bad people who misuse ATs—people like us—I think that would calm your mind." She reaches out, as if testing herself to see how far she can go, "Your mind…is too much of a mess."

_

* * *

Ren begins placing small, chaste kisses along Akira's neck. Nails in his shoulders and her gums taste like blood. _

_She pauses only to catch her breath when he presses his middle finger into the soft skin behind her knee. She makes a sound like a wounded animal and he sighs, moving the hand right hand around her back. "You smell nice." Akira says under his breath._

_Ren pulls back long enough to meet his glazed eyes before smiling to herself and dragging her tongue along his jaw. It takes everything Akira has not to flip the girl over, to let the carnal urges take over and bend her against him. But he knows he could not. He knows she is in total control of every fleshy muscle, every long limb, every broken bone in his body. Every second he burns and aches and arches and crumbles beneath her. _

_She finds his lips, painfully slow._

_And she is still all fear and weakness and necessity against him. And Akira is still strength and protection and animal domesticated under her. _

_His raging pulse drowns out hers. _

"_I can hear your blood," Ren says._

* * *

"I swear to fucking god if you fucking sigh again I am going to blow your fucking brains across that window and then lick it clean."

Akira takes the time to brush the sweat of his face before turning to Kaito.

The skeletal arm pulls a gun from his jacket and rests it on his crotch, under the table, tongue rolling across his lips.

He does not have the strength to peel himself from the leather of the booth and leave, but Akira will not let himself start something in a restaurant.

"I'll try to control my breathing." He surrenders and sees the smile of frustration fade from Kaito's face like he had really wanted to blow someone's balls off.

"Well fuck me."

Kaito sees something.

"What's with that pussy look?"

Something Akira does not want him to.

"Your face makes me want to puke."

Akira sips from his cold glass of root beer and pretends to not understand.

* * *

"_I don't think you're getting enough sleep." Ren tells him as she smoothes the creases of the white bed sheet, wrought with holes and stains. _

"_You're one to talk." Akira says back, gently stroking the bottom of her foot and wishing her clothes had been in different corners of the room. _

_But she had kept her clothes on._

"_I'm surprised you haven't cleaned this place yet," She says, as if the complete possession of the last fourteen minutes of his life was not evidence enough that she knows almost everything about him._

_That includes his embarrassing desire for clean surfaces. Ren calls it "quirky". Agito called it "faggy". _

"_How about this," She proposes, "you start cleaning, and sleeping more, and I will eat. I will eat and eat and eat and get fat and fat and fat. Then you can stop worrying. How does that sound?"_

"_Great." _

_He says it easily. Hoping to be sincere and romantic and something he does not think he is. _

_She turns to him, "You do not care if I get fat?"_

_Akira pulls himself to his knees, wobbling a bit and making Ren giggle. _

"_I don't care if you get fat." He says, taking her elbows and trying not to laugh. "I can learn how to cook…or something. If you want." _

_Ren lets out a hiss that was supposed to be a laugh before she gives him a look. A look like the way Akito looks into a mirror with; a look like the way Mimasaka looks at Aeon with; a look like the way Ren looks at birds. _

"_Akira…" She chews her tongue, "do you love me?"_

* * *

It is raining as he catches the thief. The air is humid and suffocating; a horrible blanket of heat that reeks of vomit. The streets are dark, there are no people; the only living creature is the scrawny dog eating rats in the shadows.

Akira brings him down right next to the dumpster, easily. The man is small, he was difficult to catch, but his arm breaks like a stick. Akira swallows back the sickening crunch the man's face makes as he smashes it into the rusted metal. His teeth shatter.

"Where is the next shipment arriving?" He demands.

The man's neck is shoved against the dumpster while Akira sits on his back, bending the body so he feels the spine stretch and twist.

The rain beats down upon the metal dumpster so loud Akira almost does not notice the blood spray from the man's mouth as he cries out, "My back, my back—please I—hurts—I don't know what you're talking—"

It is the blood that makes him flinch, makes his insides swim, makes him see Kaito's face in the back of his mind with a slobbery grin and jagged teeth. He sees Akito with blood on his hands, crying and asking how it got there. He sees Ren, leaning over him with his soda bottle in her fingers.

He shakes, pulling himself off the man and brushing the wet mop of hair out his eyes.

Fear. Fear like poison. It constricts his throat and burns his stomach and chills his blood all at the same time. Akira wants to throw up. He wants to melt away into the rain. Do so many things and nothing at all.

The man on the ground does not move. Akira might have thought he was dead if it were not for the rise and fall of the man's shoulders or the clogged sound of a torn windpipe.

"I'm just a middleman." He wheezes. "We aren't told…where. I was sup…posed to pass it off but the fucker never…showed…"

"We had the place surrounded. Probably got scared." Akira reasoned, fighting the urge to beat in the dumpster and puke. "Can you stand?" He asks.

The man laughs, sending chills down Akira's spine. "After that? Shit…I—"

Akira sighs. The rain is finally through his heavy, bullet-proof jacket. "I can carry you. To the hospital. Then they're gonna take you away."

"That's fucked…" The man breathes, fidgeting with the palms of his hands. "You're wearing ATs yourself…and I can't breathe…and you're the monster here."

* * *

"_When I was younger, I used to wonder what love was," Ren says. "I asked my mom once. And you know what she told me? She told me love was coming to someone's funeral. I had never been to a funeral, so I asked my step-father. He told me love was wanting to be as physically close to someone as possible. I was too young to understand what he meant. So I forgot about it for a while. I really did not think about bring in love. Not until my brother gave me that bird. I thought, 'this must be love—risking your life to see a person smile'. But I know now that I was wrong. Because when the bird was older, it flew away. I had to chase it all around the house—ha ha—you should have seen it. You would have laughed at me. But I cried my eyes out. Because in that moment, I realized that it was not happy with me, staying inside. So I tried to make it happy. I cut its wings off so it would not want to fly again. I thought if the bird thought the ground was less painful, it would stay there with me. I think that's what love is. Making the world less painful for the things you care about."_

_Bleak memories like an abyss. Akira sees Kaito eating the apple pie Akito made him; he sees Agito puking behind the warehouse after breathing too much toxic air. There is too much of those three in his mind. He wants to wonder about why he remembers those moments, about how they are important in this one, but he does not. Instead, he asks, "What about me?"_

_Looking at Ren is like looking at a bright light bulb._

"_Is it not obvious?" She asks. "It is because I treasure you. The only time that I feel happy is when I am next to you. If not, it is just that lonely feeling. That feeling like there is no one in the world who wants to see you. That feeling so far from happiness. Those moments, they are staring to last longer for me, Akira. It was not so bad, at first. But now, now it is like being followed. And you are the only thing that scares that feeling away."_

_As the two of them lay, side by side on the mattress, Akira feels fear. _

"_I need you," She says, "to keep the loneliness away, Akira. I need you to stay with me. It is sad." She intertwines her fingers in his. "I do not know if you could convince me that you understand. You might just hug me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. But you know, I sort of hate it when you do that. Because in those moments, I am only wondering how strong you think I really am. And it makes me sad to doubt you. It makes me sad to think that you would fly away because I know it would make you happier. And I hate thinking that all humans are so fickle. They chase their dreams, leaving reality behind. That is how they grow up, but then something happens. The loneliness begins and they come crashing down." _

"_Ren," Akira says, "it's gonna be okay."_

"_Akira, I need to cut your wings off. Because I love you."_

_He does not need to watch her hand as it bends back, grabbing the bottle from the floor. He does not need to watch her arm twist. He does not see the glass, so much as feel it cascade over them as she smashes it into the wall. And he does not move to stop her as she takes his wrist, and plunges the jagged edge into the stiff flesh. _

_It rips. Bubbles. Pulsates. His muscles clench around the glass, holding fast as she pulls. _

_It slides. Red trails dutifully after, gliding up his arm._

_Ren cries out before he does. An aroused, squeamish cry as she brings his wrist between her knees. Leaning over him, she parts her lips and her breathing accelerates. _

_And Akira just tilts his head back and lets his eyes flutter shut and the blood changes course—now tricking downwards into his palm and gathering between his knuckles. He does not tell her to stop. _

_He does not even make a sound, save the groan when he feels the wet heat of her body. Maybe it is blood. Maybe it is not. The saliva at the corners of her mouth and the gentle rocking of her hips tells him he has lost. _

_The blood pools around his arm and laps at her knees, draining down and wafting up. And his fingers cannot help but flex against her inner walls, treading over barriers that have already been broken. She moans. She shudders. She pants. She presses down, hard. _

_And they continue. It takes a while, but when she finishes and the blood has yet to crust into the mattress and she removes his fingers and he finally looks at her and she tells him she loves him, the pain comes. The scab will fill the wound with flaky red but the burning is still there. The sharp cut through his skin burns and the intertwined muscle aches and stings and cramps and he wants to puke. _

"_You didn't…you don…you can't trust me to let me stay..." He chokes. _

"_No," She says. "I have to haunt you. When the blood stops running, when you decide you want the pain to stop, just say so. Just say when you want to break free, if you think you can. Just say when."_

* * *

He succumbs to something. Something horrific. When he slugs the gangbanger across the face with the trashcan lid, he hears the snap of the jaw. The man tries to scramble away but a quick bash to the skull and his limbs flop to the ground, useless. Only for a moment does Akira bask in the darkness, the invisibility of the night and the comfort of the dark alley. But then he remembers the girl. He had never truly forgotten about her, but in the heat of the moment, consumed by something that should have been rage, his mind had shut her out. And now, now seeing her, torn clothes and raccoon-eyes in the moonlight, he threatens himself to not believe he made the right choice. She could be a terrible person. She could snort cocaine off the sinks in restrooms. She could forget to pick her kid up from school. She could smuggle AT parts inside her body. She could live a life of selfishness. She could have deserved it.

"Are you alright?" He asks.

* * *

"_Please do not leave me, I love you. I love you. I love you."_

* * *

He feels it. He feels the loneliness creep into his mind. The feeling of absolute abandonment. He cannot think of anyone or anything he wants to see. This feeling is the exact opposite of happiness. It is like sinking—but not exactly. It is like being alone—but not exactly. It is, literally, like not knowing, or even remembering a time when he was happy.

Akira waits. His back against the cold stone of the alley. He decides to wait it out. He is alone. Physically, there is no one around. The girl is long gone. The man as well, threatening to call the police. There is nothing around him but garbage and rats.

But it is here that he understands. It is here that he knows that he needs to see Ren. Somehow, it is what the sharp knifelike pain in his chest is saying. He knows somehow, she will understand that in a sick way, they need each other. The Fang Regalia was proof enough of that. Proof that he could fight for someone other than Agito and Akito and Kaito. It is proof that he could wield this power even a little. Proof that he did not have to fly with everyone if he did not want to. Proof that he was not a bad person. Proof that he somehow loved her.

_

* * *

She did not chase after him. He wonders how strong she thinks her words are. How terrified those three words make him. _

_Akira heard them a lot—mostly from people on the street. Hearing it is not the same as seeing it though. He can see it in Agito when he looks into a mirror. He can see it Mimasaka's eyes when she looks at Aeon. He can see it in Ren when she looks at him. _

_He goes back to his apartment, Regalia in hand. Wanting to prove that finally he understands himself and he hopes she will understands him and he wants to engrave it into her heart. He wants to paint it in the sky. He wants to drop it in the ocean. He wants to carve it into walls.

* * *

_

_THE END.  
_


End file.
